Multistakeholder Participation

Why Participate?

A key entry point, and possibly the most critical question, in each individual participatory process is to clearly resolve the question of why extended participation would be required. There are several potential benefits of stakeholder participation, since it may achieve the following:

• To different degrees, delegate influence (and responsibilities) to involved parties
• Ensure the longevity of measures, for example, by developing and securing effective and continuous management of built or social structures
• Resolve differences or placate upset stakeholders when different values and perspectives openly enter into the negotiation
• Build good working relationships among stakeholders
• Get more, and more diversified, knowledge into a planning process, also including diverging values, and thus improve the quality of both the process and its result when issues are assessed from a variety of viewpoints
• Increase stakeholder support, which may include both financial and political backing
• Strengthen trust in involved institutions
• Inform and educate those affected, or the public in general, about the intentions and content of a development project
• Ease implementation of the proposed project

From an ethical perspective, the above list can be seen as ranging between more destructive aims, such as manipulation and therapy in the worst case, up through more positive processes of collaborative knowledge production, social [Page 1957]learning, and negotiation and then toward increased emancipation and shared power among stakeholders.

Moreover, a high degree of caution is needed to evade the wide range of potentially negative outcomes of stakeholder participation. Those with the most power may manipulate the process to favor their own interests and those of actors with no real “stake” in the matter and thus abuse the process for political purposes to the disadvantage of genuine stakeholders. Public officials and/or politicians may refuse to accept results from the process, arguing that they themselves represent the public interest and safeguard the common good. In such processes, there are often delays, since the involvement of diverse stakeholders leads to more feedback loops and thus less streamlined procedures. Costs increase, for example, for the process facilitator, the participating staff, communication materials, and meetings; and new professional skills are needed for facilitating processes, conflict resolution, and communication.

Although it is clear that it may be possible to have many different, and sometimes conflicting, aims when promoting participation, these intentions are seldom clearly stated. Instead, the “why” question is often only implicitly addressed by those initiating such processes. It tends to drown in general and quite unclear assumptions that participation is a “good thing” in itself. This is a problem, since the various approaches and methods to support stakeholder interaction are likely to support very different outputs. If a development process seeks social learning, it will probably need a process design that is distinct from what is required for information purposes, not to mention truly decentralized decision making. Vagueness regarding the purpose of stakeholder participation may thus seriously undermine the foundation of any participative process.

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